The present invention relates to a transfer conveyor and more particularly to a position controlled transfer conveyor for transferring stacks of paper from a stacking station to another station.
Heretofore, transfer mechanisms for stacks of paper have used chain belts or other similar mechanisms to transport a stack of paper from a folding mechanism to a removal mechanism, such as a gripper arm which removes the stack. The stack is transferred in some other mechanism to have another operation performed on it, such as shipping. These earlier transfer conveyors did not always accurately present the package to the removal gripper arm. In addition, auxiliary power was often necessary in order to give the transfer conveyor sufficient power to move the package along. During the movement of the package on the transfer conveyor it was often necessary to use additional hold down devices to prevent the package from moving. With such devices it was not easy to remove a package if it became necessary. In addition, indexing chains used in existing transfer mechanisms pose a number of hazards which sometimes placed the operator in some danger of being injured. Moreover, some transfer conveyors do not provide secure repeatable positioning of the package as it leaves the folding mechanism so that the packages are sometimes not precisely indexed. Furthermore, some existing transfer mechanisms have fitted dividers between stations so that the number of indexed stations cannot be varied to accommodate packages of different sizes. If packages of different sizes are being processed, conveyor adjustments are necessary. In many instances, since there is no mechanism for securing the types of packages being transported, very thick packages or packages with complex folds sometimes spring open while being presented to the removal gripper arm.